Champions of a Bad Night's Rest
by Freida Right
Summary: FFIV. Have you ever wondered what it's like to go on an adventure, battle elemental lords, and save the world, all the while running on empty, sleeping badly and in very strange positions? It's not as great as it sounds, as the FFIV cast will tell you...


Ah! My first random one-shot of the summer!

This is based on a comic strip that I just did; I hope that you like it.

Without further ado…

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Champions of a Bad Night's Rest!

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Cecil wanted to sleep very badly. It was 2 am and he still couldn't get to sleep. Even though he had to get up early and travel all the way to the remote village called Mist, his thoughts kept him wide awake.

_Everything I'm doing is so wrong! First Mysidia, and now this? I've got a really bad feeling…_

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Rydia felt herself going in and out of consciousness. The blast from her sudden summoning of Titan had left her battered, unable to even tell if she was awake or not. Somewhere close by, she could hear a distant voice, calling out feebly for someone named Kain. Then she slipped back out of consciousness again, and the next thing she knew was that she was in an inn in some town called Kaipo…

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Cecil took a turn driving the hovercraft while the battered prince Edward sat in the back seat with Rydia. Almost as soon as the craft began moving, he fell into a deep sleep. His hat fell over his eyes and he started snoring loudly.

Rydia watched him worriedly as the prince started to drool a little bit. "…He's going to get a bad crick in his neck, but okay…"

Cecil, of course, had nothing to say.

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As soon as the party of four stumbled into the boundaries of the safe spot, they all sat down on the ground. For himself, Tellah rested his head against the nearest rock and was snoring loudly in a matter of seconds. His companions watched him in amazement.

"Good lord; he's sleeping on _rocks_," Cecil groaned, having known Tellah to do other fantastic things in the past.

"It doesn't look too comfy," Palom added.

"That can't be good for an old man with arthritis," Porom observed.

But they all knew the risks of waking the sage—a well-placed blast of Fira or his staff up the side of their heads—so they let Tellah sleep on.

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Golbez and Kain watched in amazement as Rosa slept, still chained to the wall. Either she had been so exhausted from three days standing straight against the wall or had lost so much circulation—or both—that she had either fallen asleep still standing or had passed out… Or both.

"How is she sleeping like that?"

"I have _no_ idea, Sir." Kain answered, shaking his head and feeling ashamed that he had reduced his best friend to this state.

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When Palom and Porom volunteered to turn themselves to stone to hold the walls back, they both knew nothing of what it would be like; they assumed that it would be a lot like taking a long nap—a fitful nap, but a nap, nonetheless. And they both needed a good long sleep after all the excitement they had been through on their adventure.

But when they were reanimated and found themselves stiff and sore—as if they had been standing still in a lunging position for about six months without moving—they wondered at the same time if they had made a mistake.

_That was really dumb,_ Palom thought petulantly.

_I'm going to have to write a book about this one day,_ Porom decided.

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Golbez had been sound asleep, dreaming. Cecil was running across a long bridge—not unlike the one from the Tower of Babil—and he stood at the other end of it, his finger hovering over a button that would obviously cause the bridge to fall in. He was just about to push the button and send Cecil plummeting to his doom—his _real_ doom—when…

"Sir! Sir!"

The door to his bedroom flew open with a bang, sending a ray of light from the hallway screaming into his face like a Flare spell. Barbaricia's lithe form eclipsed the light; she couldn't seem to keep still from excitement, like a spring zephyr.

"Sir! Cecil's up to something again! There's only me and that jerk Rubicante left. Which one of us should go deal with him this time? _I_ think you should send _me_, because…"

While Barbaricia babbled on, Golbez looked over and checked the clock. It was 2:30 in the morning. While the wind fiend was distracted with herself, he surreptitiously slipped his Giant of Babil plushie under his blanket before she saw it, resisting the urge to smother her with it.

_I may kill her before Cecil has the chance…_ he thought, pulling his pillow over his head, trying to block Barbaricia out and get back to dreaming about killing Cecil in many horrible, lovely ways.

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It had taken a dreadfully long time to walk through the toxic cave, run back to the Overworld, and return once more to the Sylph cave to revive Yang, who everyone thought had died disabling the cannons in the Tower of Babil. Yang was, in fact, quite alive. Just totally unconscious. Luckily, upon dutifully reporting this back to his wife in Fabul, she handed them a large cast-iron frying pan.

"That ought to do it," she said proudly.

The sylphs who had been caring for Yang didn't think it was so great.

"What are you doing, you brute?!" one of them demanded.

Cecil ignored her complaints and prepared to whack his friend over the head with the frying pan.

"Sorry, dude. This is for your own good…"

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Rydia watched with slight horror as Cid collapsed on the _Falcon_'s deck, wrench still in hand. Edge ran over and knelt down beside him, checking frantically for a pulse and looking terrified that he had done something to contribute to Cid's faint.

"Oh my god!" Rydia cried as a pair of dwarf medics scurried over, shooed a sorry-looking Edge out of the way and began loading Cid into a stretcher. "Is he dead?" she asked Cecil and Rosa, who were standing nearby watching the whole thing and shaking their heads sadly.

"Nah, he's not dead," Cecil informed flatly. "He's just overworked himself."

"Again," Rosa added, nonplussed with the engineer.

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Bored and pretty tired, Edge had begun to rock back on the back legs of his chair, despite the many warnings he got from his comrades. Exhausted, he continued to rock back in his chair until, to everyone's surprise-but-not-_really_-surprise, the ninja tumbled over backwards in a most ungraceful and un-ninja-like fashion. They ran over to see if he was okay, only to find that the fall had rendered him unconscious. Beneath his mask, he was smiling contentedly and snoring a bit.

"Sheesh," Rydia remarked. "And I thought that _Edward_ slept funny…"

"Huh? What are you talking about?" asked Cecil.

"Oh, nothing…"

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Alone in the otherwise empty chamber, FuSoYa continued to meditate in silence. All around him was dead still—the kind of still that makes the ears roar and the eyelids drop. However, FuSoYa continued to meditate, despite how tired he was. He had to stay up and wait for his brother's son to show up. He had directions for his long-lost nephew, and he had a feeling that the boy would be there soon.

Mighty little comfort it brought the old Lunarian. He sighed, willing his eyes to remain open, one more second at a time.

"I wish that kid would hurry up and get here," he mumbled to himself. "I wanna go back to sleep, like the others!"

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Kain sat far away from the others in the cold, lonesome shadows. He stole a glance over his shoulder at the campfire—still a safe distance away—to observe his companions. Edge was trying to sweet talk Rydia _again_, she was threatening him _again_, and Cecil and Rosa were sitting back enjoying the scene and being grateful that their relationship wasn't like that.

Kain turned away, shivered a little, and sighed. He kind of wished that he could move closer to the fire, but he didn't feel like being so close to everyone else.

All the same, it was cold and lonely in the shadows to which he had banished himself. Sleep wasn't going to come easy tonight, the night before he had to battle Zeromus.

_Perfect…_ he thought.

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And, sure enough, Kain was one of the first people KO'ed by Zeromus' attack, because he was drowsy and wasn't paying attention. The others fell shortly after that—having had a _slightly_ better rest than he—and Cecil found himself just barely hanging on.

Suddenly, out of the blue, he heard the voices of the twins and, one by one, all of his other past-comrades. Even the ones who were dead showed up. And they relinquished all their strength to him and the fallen people around him so they could resume their fight.

Unbeknownst to Cecil, the magic being used had created a convenient mind-link between the people on the Blue Planet, and they all thought this effort was a lost cause:

"Here!" Palom had cried in his always-cheery way, trying to boost Cecil's morale and failing in boosting everyone else's. "You can have _our_ strength!"

"_Sure; what's _left_ of it, anyway,"_ his sister thought back to him. Everyone else with her heard her comment and agreed with her out loud in their own minds.

"_Yeah."_

"_Ditto."_

"_What she said."_

"_Smart kid."_

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Well, of course, the Light Warriors returned victorious and there was rejoicing all across the Blue Planet. Good times were being had by all… Except by the Light Warriors themselves.

"My back hurts," Rydia complained to Edward, who was holding an ice-pack to his head.

"My head hurts," he added.

"I wanna go to bed," Cecil whined.

"I'm so tired I can't even heal myself," Rosa complained; she had a little MP left, but she was so tired she could barely speak. She may as well have been silenced.

"I still feel like a rock," Palom complained to Porom.

"Me too!" she agreed, starting to cry.

"Hey, Golbez, why don't you come back to the moon with me?" FuSoYa suggested to his older nephew. "We'll all go to sleep for a long, long time."

"Ooh. That sounds _fabulous_. Let's go right now!"

But FuSoYa and Golbez were the only ones to get to bed right away, because all the others wound up having to attend celebration parties and such.

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Bottom line:

Even the Light Warriors need a good night's sleep and a filling, nutritious breakfast in the morning.

But breakfast, of course, is another story.


End file.
